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PROLOGUE
SEEING A SHAGGY brown camel drinking from a bucket on somebody’s lawn would normally be surprising, at least to anyone not born in a country whose main landscape feature was sand. Damon Cole, however, could muster no surprise. Because here—in the Florida mobile home community where his grandparents lived—the sight made just about as much sense as anything else.
And he suddenly found himself smiling.
His own reaction startled him. He hadn’t had anything to smile about in a long time. Weeks. Months? Hard to remember the last happy, contented moment in his life. Yet, as he turned into the short gravel driveway fronting the mobile home, contentment was what he felt.
That could have been caused by the great memories he had of the place from his childhood, or by how much he’d missed his grandparents. Or even, simply, by the camel. Whatever the reason, he was glad. The emotions provided a respite from the more common feeling of helpless anger he’d experienced in recent weeks.
When he’d left Jacksonville that morning, he hadn’t known where he was headed. He’d just had to get away—from his job, his life, his reality. So maybe it wasn’t at all unusual that he’d found himself in Gibsonton where he’d often enjoyed another type of reality altogether during his childhood. His grandparents’ place had been his favorite spot on Earth when he was a kid. Both thrilling and a little frightening, it had provided many adventures and a whole lot of fantasies. Of escape.
“Yeah, not much of a surprise there,” he muttered. Escaping had been all he’d been able to think about for weeks, since he’d hit rock-bottom professionally and emotionally. Since he was now officially unemployed, having quit his job as a counselor and caseworker with the Florida Department of Children & Families, he was ready to make that escape.
Swallowing, he pushed some ugly images out of his mind and cut the car engine. He looked around, trying to remember how long it had been since he’d come for a visit. Ten months, at least. Grandson of the year, he was not.
The neighborhood hadn’t changed much. The road signs were dull and hard to read, and the narrow street was pitted with potholes. Neatly trimmed, lush lawns competed for the small amount of rain with neighboring brown patches of weed. Pink flamingos and garden gnomes stood sentry over colorful flower beds.
At first glance it seemed a typical Florida retirement community for the blue-collar people whose bones couldn’t handle the northern winters, or whose social security checks couldn’t deal with northern prices. It looked overwhelmingly normal. Except for the camel. And the man on stilts walking down the middle of the road. And the elephant grazing down the block.
“Damon!”
Glancing at the porch, he saw his grandmother rushing out to greet him. As spry as she’d been a decade ago, she wore a flowery dress and a sun hat. If not for the nearby menagerie and the sparkle of cunning mischief in her eyes, she could be mistaken for any snowbird wintering in Florida.
Few would recognize Madame Natasha, who’d told the fortunes of thousands of fair-and carnival-goers in forty-eight states. Not unless she took off that hat and unwound the waist-length hair, once jet-black but now an even more dramatic shimmery grey.
“Nona,” he said as he got out. He braced himself for either a huge hug or a rap on the head because he hadn’t been in touch.
He got the hug. She flew into his arms, her hat falling off as she kissed each of his cheeks. “I knew you were coming.”
He laughed as he let her go. “Of course, you did.”
“You doubt me?” Taking his arm, she tugged him toward the house, giving the camel a wide berth. Seeing the line of drool dangling out of the animal’s mouth, Damon did the same. He knew from experience that camel spit could travel a long way.
Once inside, Nona pointed at the table, neatly set for three with a platter full of steamy fried oysters and corn on the cob. “Papa went to get your favorite beer,” she explained.
“Okay. You were expecting me.”
“It wasn’t my crystal ball,” she admitted. “I read the latest article in the paper today and thought you might arrive at my door.” Her expression haunted, she added, “I’m so sorry.”
Yeah. So was Damon.
“Did you really quit your job? Resign in anger like the article said?” She pushed him toward a chair while she spoke, putting a plate in front of him and filling it with food in her typical eat-no-matter-what-the-occasion manner.
“I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said through a throat that seemed too tight to inhale even enough air to keep his heart beating. Sometimes he wondered if he even possessed a heart at all, since his had felt pulverized that day six weeks ago. It had been wounded when he’d realized he couldn’t keep his promises to a little boy who’d counted on Damon to keep him safe. It had been crushed when he’d learned that boy was back in the hospital, badly injured by parents who’d never been fit for the job. Parents Damon had fought to keep out of the child’s life, and who’d nearly killed their son less than a month after getting him back from a safe foster home.
At least now those fucking parents were in jail and the boy’s loving foster parents were anxious to adopt him. But it was one hell of a way to get a child into a safe environment. And frankly, Damon didn’t feel much incentive to stick around to grow attached to another kid he couldn’t help, considering the state’s red tape, low budget, and lack of support. He’d find another way to help; he just couldn’t do it that way anymore.
His grandmother shook her head and tsked, kissing a small St. Jude’s medal that hung from a silver chain around her neck. “Bless his precious soul.” Sitting opposite him at the table, she filled a plate for herself. “So where are you going?”
That was a good question, to which he didn’t have an answer. He just knew he needed to go. To keep moving, until he figured out what he was going to do with his life now that he’d walked away from the career he’d been working toward since grad school. “Not sure. I packed up most of my personal stuff and let a friend move into my apartment for the summer.”
Her vivid violet eyes widened. “That long?”
“It’s a start.” Three months hardly seemed long enough to figure out where he’d gone wrong, what he could have done differently—and what direction the rest of his life would take.
Then again, three months also probably seemed pretty self-indulgent to normal people raised on a traditional nine-to-five, two-weeks-vacation-a-year work ethic. He supposed having a carnival family background made the idea of dropping out of the real world for a little while not only possible but very appealing. If only he knew where he was going as a dropout.
Cancún? Fiji? Not on a former state employee’s salary.
